1992: March 29-April 4

Why Rebekah’s quitting Summer Bay
After two years playing hapless teenager Sophie in Home And Away, Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) has decided to leave the series.  The 18-year-old will tape her final scenes for the show in September and hopes that life after Home And Away will be a little less frantic.  “There is definitely life after Home And Away,” she told TV Week.  “It’s been great and I’ve learned heaps, but the pace is just too much and I need a break.  Come September, I plan to do a lot of travelling overseas and I might even do a pantomime in London.”

John plays by new rules
”People tend to see me as Rafferty and nothing else,” actor John Wood tells TV Week.  “So I’m pleased that Dearest Enemy is about to be screened – it might break down that feeling a bit.”  The three-time TV Week Logie winner stars in the series alongside Linden Wilkinson, Bruce Spence, Frank Wilson and Vic Hawkins.  “I’ve been lucky in that in the two major series I’ve done, I’ve had wonderful female co-stars – Catherine Wilkin in Rafferty’s Rules, and now Linden.”  But with production of Dearest Enemy completed some time ago – and despite a current stage role in Sydney – Wood can’t get back into television.  “A couple of years ago, I was the most outstanding actor on television.  Now I can’t get a bloody job in television.  It’s amazing,” he laughs.

Richard insures against handbag attacks
As Terry Sullivan in the long-running series The Sullivans, actor Richard Morgan (pictured) became one of Australia’s most recognisable faces – something he hated, and was made more difficult when Terry started beating his wife.  “I copped a few handbags across the face in supermarkets from women who couldn’t tell between fantasy and reality,” he told TV Week.  Now, a decade later, he is content to enjoy his anonymity working in the insurance industry and appearing only in roles that appeal to him, such as the mysterious Michael Tranti in an upcoming episode of Chances.  Tranti is a married businessman who develops an unhealthy infatuation with advertising executive Angela (Patsy Stephen) when he enlists the advertising agency for his company’s new campaign.  Chances is Morgan’s first television appearance in 18 months, his last TV role being on the Seven Network drama series Skirts.

Briefly…
Australian actress Christine Harris (pictured), with television credits including The Young Doctors, Carson’s Law, Prisoner, Neighbours, Chances and ABC mini-series Darlings Of The Gods, is in the running for a major overseas role – the part of Scarlett O’Hara in the sequel to the cinema classic Gone With The Wind.

Former Neighbours star Andrew Williams is soon to begin a 13-week guest stint in Ten’s other prime time drama, E Street. He will make his on screen debut in June.

Meanwhile, the producers of E Street are now developing a drama-sitcom project featuring pop group The Teen Queens. The video clip of the group’s debut single, Be My Baby, appeared on E Street recently. The pilot for the new series, to be set in Bondi Beach, is to be filmed soon.

There is speculation that the Nine Network may give the flick to Clive Robertson and The World Tonight to make way for a new show to be hosted by Richard Wilkins.

Former Chances star Cathy Godbold, whose role as leukaemia victim Meg Bowman in Home And Away comes to a tragic end on screen this week, has appeared in a pilot episode of a proposed new sitcom, Newlyweds.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here:

’The Minister for Information and Immigration… has been the target for strong press criticism in this immigration venture’ .  With thousands of higher-living nationals awaiting entrance – English, Nordic types and Americans – who can offer this country ideas and culture, it is little wonder that this project has been the centre of bitter controversy.  Let us hope that immigration of the future will be planned deliberately and intelligently and offer more opportunities to the people of our own stock.’ 

“Those quotes (above) are not from a speech by someone from the extreme right of South African politics.  They are taken from a Cinesound Review newsreel, made right here in Australia.  The government minister to whom the voice-over referred was the late Arthur Calwell, who held the Information and Immigration portfolios in the Chifley Government between 1945 and 1949.  The newsreel footage is part of Alec Morgan’s film Admission Impossible: The Story Behind The White Australia Policy.  A Film Australia production, it screens on ABC this week.  The film, narrated by former Four Corners reporter Paul Barry, is a combination of archival film and interviews with immigration officials.  It paints successive Australian governments as underhanded and racist.  Admission Impossible forcefully supports Alec Morgan’s contention that Australia as an egalitarian nation embracing multiculturalism was – and is – a myth.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 29-April 4):
Sunday:  With cricket season now over, Nine’s weekly sports magazine programs Wide World Of Sports: Sunday Edition and Sports Sunday return.  During the afternoon, Nine crosses to Suzuka, Japan, for live coverage of the Japanese 500cc Grand Prix.  Sunday night movies are Black Rain (Seven), Flatliners (Nine) and Revenge (Ten) – while ABC screens the Film Australia documentary Admission Impossible, focusing on the behind-the-scenes political forces and propaganda campaigns that attempted to populate Australia with pure white migrants. 

Monday:  In the series return of Dearest Enemy (ABC), Alex (Linden Wilkinson, pictured) gets a crash course in political wheeling and dealing.  In A Country Practice (Seven), Frank Gilroy (Brian Wenzel) gives up plans for retirement when Constable Tom Newman (Jon Concannon) decides to quit.

Tuesday:  Nine presents delayed coverage of the presentation of the 64th annual Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal at the Los Angeles Music Centre.  Nominations for Best Picture are Bugsy, Beauty And The Beast, JFK, Prince Of Tides and Silence Of The Lambs.

Wednesday:  In Home And Away (Seven), Meg (Cathy Godbold) needs all her energy to live her final days to the full. 

Thursday:  In ABC crime drama Phoenix, Lochie (Andy Anderson), frustrated by his desk jockey status, finally has the chance to lead a raid but it goes embarrassingly wrong.

Friday:  Documentary series A Big Country (ABC) looks at Tim Kelly, former champion rodeo rider – with the hard-drinking and hard-living life-style that came with it – whose life has changed since gospel preachers called him to God.  Now, Kelly is a sincere and gentle man whose wife, a former barmaid and bikie, has also converted to the Christian faith.

Saturday:  Afternoon sport includes netball (ABC), highlights of the Australian Swimming Olympic trials (Seven), Hong Kong 7’s Rugby Union (Ten) and five hours of Wide World Of Sports (Nine).  Evening sport includes live coverage of the Mitsubishi NBL Challenge from the National Tennis Centre (Ten), highlights of the day’s AFL matches (Seven) and a late-night delayed telecast of Winfield Cup Rugby League (Nine).  This week’s episode of the SBS documentary series Through Australian Eyes looks at the lives of three Australian-born Jewish sisters and their children.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  28 March 1992.  Southdown Press.

WIN rediscovers Homicide

When it debuted in October 1964, Homicide marked a significant milestone in the development of Australian television drama.  There had been earlier attempts at drama series, soap operas, mini-series and televised plays but many struggled to gain a high profile in Australia’s early television landscape.  After all, it was so much cheaper to buy US shows than to invest in local production, but Homicide was the first high-profile drama series to be made by Australians for Australians and its ratings from the very beginning proved that local production could be a viable and popular alternative to imported programs.

The show’s producer, Hector Crawford, had been a successful producer of radio programs since the mid-1940s and television productions since the late 1950s and had modelled Homicide loosely on an earlier radio drama series, D24.

Homicide made its debut on Melbourne’s HSV7 on Tuesday 20 October 1964 at 7.30pm.  The series was soon sold across the network and also later sold overseas.  By 1966, Homicide was ranked as the third most popular show on Australian television, rising to first place the following year and would top the national ratings again for four consecutive years from 1969 to 1972.  In 1973 it was bumped to second place by Number 96. 

The success of Homicide led to Crawford receiving requests from rival networks to produce police dramas for them as well – and he responded with Division 4 (Nine Network) and Matlock Police (0-10 Network) which were also well received by the public.

Homicide continued for a record breaking 510 episodes with its final episode going to air on HSV7 in January 1977, although production had ceased as far back as 1975.   Homicide’s demise came soon after the axe had also been put to Division 4 and Matlock Police, triggering theories that the networks had colluded to bring down the Crawford empire in response to his high-profile battle to force the networks into an increase in the amount of Australian production on television.

Since its last episode in 1977, repeats of Homicide have been few and far between.  The Seven Network did pay tribute to Homicide on the occasion of the show’s 30th anniversary in 1994 with a one-hour special hosted by Blue Heelers stars John Wood and Lisa McCune, and the network screened a handful of Homicide episodes in an afternoon timeslot.

Seven also paid tribute to Homicide in November 2005 with the screening of the 1973 episode that farewelled long-time cast members Leonard Teale (pictured, far right, with the cast in 1967) and Alwyn Kurts to commemorate the start of HSV7’s fiftieth year of transmission.  And the Nine Network’s 50 Years 50 Shows special, produced in 2005, ranked Homicide as the 12th most significant program to have been made in 50 years of Australian television.

With Crawford Productions now owned by WIN Corporation, its regional television network, WIN, has in recent years been re-playing various series from the Crawford archives in late-night timeslots.  Some of the titles to have featured include Division 4, Matlock Police, Carson’s Law, Skyways and even the ill-fated Holiday Island.  With episodes of most of those titles now exhausted WIN earlier this month started replaying Homicide, starting from the show’s earliest episodes that first went to air in 1964.

WIN broadcasts through regional markets in Southern NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia as well as the Australian Capital Territory.

Homicide.  Monday night/Tuesday morning, 2.00am.  WIN Television (except South Australia)

Source: TV Eye – Classic Australian Television, TelevisionAU

1990: July 7-13

Cover: Sharyn Hodgson, Julian McMahon (Home And Away)

Confrontation!
The Ten Network’s long-awaited return of The Comedy Company is about to hit screens as the ratings underdog up against Nine’s 60 Minutes.  “I don’t think it will be that hard to make up lost ground on 60 Minutes,” producer Ian McFadyen told TV Week.  The revamped comedy hour promises not to be “more of the same” according to McFadyen.  A number of new cast members have been added to the show – including Geoff Paine (Neighbours), Tracy Harvey (The Gillies Report), Melanie Salomon (E Street) and stage performers Alix Longman and Bernadette Robinson – alongside familiar names Maryanne Fahey, Peter Rowsthorn, Russell Gilbert and Mark Mitchell.  Meanwhile, Mitchell’s own comedy series, Larger Than Life, is to be replaced by a new series called The Big Time, featuring Mitchell and wife Di and sons Rhys and Lewis.

New doors open for ‘Ding Dong’
The Nine Network’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday celebrates its 20th anniversary next year but there is speculation that former co-host Jacki MacDonald, and not Denise Drysdale (pictured), will be there for the milestone.  “I heard a rumour that Jacki is coming back,” Drysdale told TV Week.  “If they asked me back, I’d be there, but that’s not up to me.  It’s in the laps of the gods.”  Meanwhile, Drysdale has hired Glenn Wheatley as her manager.  Wheatley has signed a two-year deal with Ronson Australia for Drysdale to promote its products in store appearances and television commercials.  She is also keen to pursue a dream role in a TV sitcom.  “I have a concept and I’m working with a scriptwriter now,” she says.  “We’ve written only bits and pieces so far but I’d like to see a pilot by the end of the year.”  Meanwhile, Drysdale has spoken out about the reported rift between her and Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers.  “Yes, it hurt and I think it’s detrimental to the show.  Even if it’s true, the viewing audience don’t want to know if there’s a problem.  I won’t speak out about it.  What can I say?  People make up their own minds.  I am loud.  Jacki wasn’t a loud person, so I think it was hard for everyone else.  I been lucky to be here a year.  I was lucky Jacki wanted to have a baby.  I would still have had In Melbourne Today (with Ernie Sigley) but I wouldn’t have had all these doors that have opened now.”

Jennifer Keyte’s a working girl!
The Seven Network’s Melbourne-based newsreader Jennifer Keyte (pictured) has admitted that reading the channel’s main 6.00pm news bulletin and appearing on the late-night show Tonight Live With Steve Vizard has taken its toll on her personal life.  “My only social time is on weekends,” she told TV Week.  “It’s the only opportunity I have to catch up with my friends.  By the time I get home after Tonight Live, take the make-up off and have a cup of Milo, I hit the sack very easily.”  But Keyte is not complaining about the long hours that both TV roles are demanding.  “I’m very happy with the way things are going.  When I started on Tonight Live, I made sure everyone was aware of my priority – the 6.00pm news.  With any news, credibility must be maintained and if that didn’t happen I’d have to reassess my involvement with the show.  But I think the two shows enhance each other.”

Briefly…
Actress Sarah Chadwick has made a sudden decision to leave the popular ABC drama GP.  “GP is my first big role since leaving NIDA,” she told TV Week.  “Consequently I’ve had little chance to do anything else.  I just feel that now, after a year, it’s time to move on.”  Chadwick’s character, Dr Catherine Mitchell, will be written out of the show but does leave the door open for her to return.  Meanwhile, Cameron Daddo has signed up for a brief ongoing role in the show.

Home And Away star Nana Coburn (the daughter of co-star Norman Coburn) has taped her last scenes for the show and is about to head off to Fiji to begin filming on a new international project, the sequel to the hit movie The Blue Lagoon.

Two of Australia’s best known actors, Neighbours’ Anne Charleston and The Flying Doctors’ Andrew McFarlane, are among the stars to appear on stage in the Victorian Arts Centre’s production of Love Letters.  Also starring in the production are Terry Norris and wife Julia Blake, Lewis Fiander and Peta Toppano.

John Laws says…
”Well, advertising has arrived on SBS, thanks to the World Cup.  And, no, the earth didn’t move.  The nation’s morals were not placed in peril.  Television standards were not lowered.  Of course not.  SBS’ initial foray into “corporate advertising” was very nicely done.  Nothing over the top and nothing that interfered with the station’s excellent coverage of the international soccerfest.”

Program Highlights (July 7-13):
Sunday:  The final stages of the World Cup starting at 3.30am with the playoff for third and fourth place, live on SBS and ABC regionals.  HSV7’s Sunday afternoon AFL features Sydney Swans versus Carlton, and ATV10 crosses to Sydney for rugby league with the State Bank Big Game.  Gary Sweet, Bruno Lawrence and Penne Hackforth-Jones star in Boy Soldiers, the second in the More Winners series of children’s dramas on ABC.  Sunday night movies are Under Siege (HSV7), Vibes (GTV9) and Back To The Future (ATV10).

Monday:  The final of the World Cup is telecast from 3.30am on SBS and ABC regionals, with SBS repeating the match at 7.00pm.  At 2.30pm, ATV10 starts a re-run of its popular 1980s drama Carson’s Law, set in Melbourne in the 1920s and starring Lorraine Bayly.  That night, ATV10 begins a re-run of the four-part mini-series, The Dirtwater Dynasty, starring Hugo Weaving.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (HSV7), Terence (Shane Porteous) operates on Lucy (Georgie Parker) and confirms her worst fears.  In GP (ABC), Dr Catherine Mitchell (Sarah Chadwick) faces the tragedy of losing her baby.

Thursday:  A bushfire breaks out in The Flying Doctors (GTV9), and Coopers Crossing is threatened.  Dr Ratcliffe (Brett Climo) and Dr Standish (Robert Grubb) find themselves battling the fire.

Friday:  Dennis Cometti, Sandy Roberts and Ross Glendinning head HSV7’s coverage of AFL, West Coast Eagles versus St Kilda, live from Subiaco.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.        
7 July 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: March 24-30

Kate bows out on a high
A fear of heights and a brewing thunderstorm ensured that Kate Raison’s final scenes in A Country Practice would be her most terrifying.  The wedding between Raison’s character, Cathy Hayden, and new love John Freeman (William McInnes) was filmed on a clifftop with a wild storm headed its way.  Producers almost had to abandon the wedding scenes as the storm hampered progress with filming.  “It certainly wasn’t a glamorous ending for my days on A Country Practice,” Raison (pictured, with co-star Georgie Parker)told TV Week.

Annie’s left holding the baby!
TV Week has a sneak peek at the upcoming Seven Network mini-series Jackaroo, starring former Neighbours star Annie Jones.  Jones plays Clare Mallory, a spoilt, rich, city kid who falls for Jack Simmonds (David McCubbin), the overseer of her family’s property, and the couple have a child.  The romance is a controversial one, as Simmonds’ indigenous heritage puts him at odds with Clare’s conservative parents who are against their daughter having a mixed-race marriage.  Simmonds is thrown off the family property and Clare, with baby in tow, is sent away.  Simmonds then embarks on a dramatic search for his lover and child.  Jackaroo is set to air on the Seven Network later in the year.

It’s a Forties triple treat!
Rebecca Gibney, Kerry Armstrong and Lisa Harrow head the cast of ABC’s new mini-series, Come In Spinner, set in Sydney in 1944 and following the lives and loves of three women who work in a beauty salon.  Also starring in the series are Justine Clarke, Zoe Bertram, Gary Sweet, Rebecca Smart and Bryan Marshall.  In auditioning for the role of Guinea Malone, Gibney (pictured) was so determined to get the part that she borrowed one of Grace Sullivan’s old dresses from the Crawford Productions wardrobe and also enlisted the help of the make-up artist from her former series, The Flying Doctors, to give her a genuine 1940s look.  “I’d have loved to have really lived in that time.  The Forties were my favourite era, and I love the movies from those days.  They had real stars back then,” Gibney told TV Week.

Briefly…
There’s romance on the set of Neighbours with Stefan Dennis said to be an “item” with co-star Gayle Blakeney, who joined the series last year with twin sister Gillian.  The off-screen romance comes as an upcoming storyline in the series will have Paul Robinson (Dennis) moving in to share a house with the twins and the three falling into a complex romantic triangle. 

Pop princess and former Neighbours star Kylie Minogue (pictured) is believed to have bought a million dollar property in a leafy, east Melbourne suburb, sparking off a lot of gossip and speculation by her future real-life neighbours.  Locals have spotted the pop star checking on progress on renovations to the older-style house.  It is not known if Minogue will move into the house with her boyfriend, rock star Michael Hutchence.

Network Ten is funding the development of a new series which it hopes will rival the success of the hit US series The Golden Girls.  The series, based on the stage comedy Lipstick Dreams which has recently played in NSW and Victoria, is set to include Lorraine Bayly (The Sullivans, Carson’s Law) and Felicity Soper (Richmond Hill).  The pilot episode for the series will be filmed in the coming months.

John Laws says…
”Just when Kerry O’Brien’s Lateline program has begun to find its feet comes the news that it has aroused a wave of resentment among some ABC staffers.  At the core of the problem are the allegedly excessive costs of mounting the Lateline program.  The joke around the ABC canteens is that program should be called ‘Wasteline’.  I’m surprised that Lateline, which has a basically simple format, should cost a lot of money.  After all, only one subject is tackled on each program three nights a week, 90 minutes in all, and most of it committed to interviewing one or two people in the studio.  How can this cost a lot of money?”

Program Highlights (March 24-30):
Saturday:  ABC, HSV7 and GTV9 all devote most of Saturday evening to coverage of the Federal Election from the National Tally Room in Canberra.  Andrew Olle heads ABC’s coverage, with Dennis Grant and Derryn Hinch on Seven, and Jim Waley and Ray Martin on Nine.  ATV10’s election coverage is limited to fifteen minutes after Bill Collins’ Golden Years Of Hollywood movie, and SBS presents brief updates in between regular programs throughout the evening.
Sunday:  GTV9’s Sunday current affairs program presents a special post-Election edition.  Sunday night movies are Deadly Pursuit (HSV7), Suspect (GTV9) and Best-Seller (ATV10).  ABC, in a rare move, screens a Sunday night movie, a Swedish-language (with English subtitles) drama, My Life As A Dog.
Monday:  With the Federal Election now over, Andrew Denton presents the final edition of The Party Machine.
Tuesday:  GTV9 presents a delayed telecast of The 62nd Academy Awards.  Nominated for Best Picture are Born On The Fourth Of July, Dead Poet’s Society, Driving Miss Daisy, Field Of Dreams and My Left Foot.
Wednesday:  Daryl Somers hosts the return of talent quest series New Faces on GTV9.  ABC presents the first episode of World War II mini-series Come In Spinner (pictured).
Thursday:  ATV10 presents a one-hour documentary, Teenage Sexuality: The Best Years Of Our Lives, hosted by Brad Robinson.  Teenagers openly discuss their first sexual experiences and attitudes to contraception and promiscuity.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.   
24 March 1990. Southdown Press.

Brian James

Of the names remembered in our last post of 2009 there was one name that has only now come to our attention – actor Brian James, who passed away late last year at the age of 91.

A former schoolteacher, James served in the Navy for six years before making his professional acting debut in the production of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter, at the Princess Theatre, in 1948.  After touring Australia with the production he went to London, studying drama and also appearing at the West End in the naval comedy Seagulls Over Sorrento – a production that he would also appear in on stage upon his return to Australia.

By the late-1950s, James had made the transition to television, with the lead role in the GTV9 series Emergency, followed by HSV7’s live-to-air performance of Seagulls Over Sorrento, reprising his former stage role.

In the early ‘60s, James had scored the lead role of Captain Bligh in the ABC historical series Stormy Petrel, a role which won him a TV Week Logie for best actor in 1961.  He then appeared in the courtroom drama Consider Your Verdict and played the title role in the Seven Network’s Jonah.

On 1 August 1964, he appeared (pictured) in the TV special This Is It!, commemorating the official opening of Melbourne’s third commercial television channel, ATV0, from studios based in the suburb of Nunawading. 

With roles in dozens of stage productions and in TV series including Bellbird, Motel, Solo One and Young Ramsay, James continued to be a familiar name on both stage and television throughout the 1970s, ending the decade as the bumbling airport administration officer George Tippett in the Seven Network’s Skyways – a role that scored him a Penguin Award.

During the ‘80s he reprised the role of George Tippett in Holiday Island, guest starred in Carson’s Law, appeared as prison warden Stan Dobson in Prisoner and swept neighbourhood gossip Nell Mangel (Vivean Gray) off her feet in Neighbours – all productions based in the same Nunawading studios where he appeared on opening night of ATV0 in 1964.

His last credited TV role was in the ABC series Something In The Air.

Brian James is survived by his niece Julie and nephews Phillip, Michael and Brian.  His cousin Gerald Mayhead had written a tribute to Brian James for The Age, including his extensive stage and film career.

Source: The Age, IMDB, Australian Television Information Archive

Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell

Australia has lost one of the legends of the showbusiness world with the passing of actor Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell at the age of 86 after complications with prostate cancer.

Born in Sydney, Tingwell’s first job was as an announcer at radio station 2CH.  In 1941 he joined the Royal Australian Air Force and served in World War II.  Upon returning to Australia he married girlfriend Audrey Wilson and ventured into an acting career that would continue for the rest of his life – taking in film, radio and stage productions and later television.

After seventeen years working in the United Kingdom – where he starred in many TV and film roles but not least being a voice artist for the ‘Supermarionation’ sci-fi series The Thunderbirds – Tingwell and his family returned to Australia in 1973 when producer Hector Crawford signed him up for a leading role in the long-running series Homicide.

After Homicide, Tingwell stayed with Crawford Productions as a director for other series including The Box, The Sullivans, Cop Shop, Skyways, Holiday Island, Carson’s Law and the mini-series The Flying Doctors.   He featured in just about every other major drama series on Australian TV – Prisoner, Neighbours, Zoo Family, A Country Practice, GP, The Flying Doctors, Bellbird, Blue Heelers, All Saints, Round The Twist, Changi, Something In The Air and The Secret Life Of Us, just to name a few.

Movie roles included Breaker Morant, Puberty Blues, Innocence, The Dish, Evil Angels and Jindabyne.

As well as drama, Tingwell’s career also had a lighter side, appearing as “Gramps” in the “Charlie The Wonderdog” series of comedy sketches for ABC’s The Late Show, as a judge in Mother And Son and as a lawyer in the modern-day suburban classic The Castle.

In 1994, Tingwell was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame and in 1999 received an Order of Australia medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

One of his last TV roles was as British prime minister Winston Churchill in the ABC telemovie Menzies And Churchill At War.

Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell is survived by son Christopher and daughter Virginia.  Wife Audrey passed away in 1996.

Source: IMDB, Herald Sun, Bud’s Blog

Where's the royalties, Skip?

Yesterday's newspapers reported that veteran actor Tony Bonner has lodged a claim with the NSW Supreme Court seeking residuals from forty years of syndication and merchandising of the classic children's TV series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo.

Bonner (pictured, in 1968), who played helicopter pilot Jerry King in the show's first series - it went for three - is reportedly seeking an amount that could reach into the millions given the amount of merchandising and overseas sales the series has generated.

More than 120 countries have seen Skippy The Bush Kangaroo, although it is many years since the original series has been shown on Australian TV despite almost continual reruns during the 1970s and 1980s. The series was remade in the early 1990s as The Adventures Of Skippy, and in more recent times all three series of the original Skippy production have been released on DVD.

The now 64-year-old actor, who went on from Skippy to appear in numerous other series including Cop Shop, Skyways, Carson's Law, and Anzacs and more recently seen in a series of McDonald's commercials as fictional 'burger naming legend' Ken Thomas, claims the lawsuit isn't about money ("anybody who knows me will testify to that") but would like to be formally recognised for his contribution for a series that has become an Australian icon:

"When I signed on for the first season of Skippy I was a young, and probably naive, actor, and I was given a verbal agreement that if the show was successful after the first season then we'd talk about a few more bikkies in the bikkie tin. When it did become successful I soon realised there wasn't going to be anything forthcoming."

"For years people have thought I was earning a lot of money from the show, but I haven't received a single cent since my last pay cheque from Fauna (about $200) in 1968. When I saw the latest boxed set of DVDs I thought, 'I've had enough'."

The actor's claim for residuals is a familiar cry from actors who appeared in early TV series that have seen their work paraded in syndication and re-runs for decades, but their original contracts made no provision for residual payments.

Source: News.com.au